When to use auto negotiation on ethernet switches?

I’m configuring a pair of SN2100 (MLAG together) which will have port channels to a pair of SN2700 (MLAG together), in a Spine & Leaf configuration.

For all the MLAGs and LAGs interfaces, should their speeds (10G, 25G, 40G, 100G), be hard set to the transceivers’ speed with NO NEGOTIATION?

I’m trying to understand when to use Auto Negotiation and when not to.

Hi Nagi-loon,

Auto-negotiation is enabled by default on all interfaces but only for advertised speeds.

In order to Enable auto-negotiation over all supported speed values you need to configure the interface speed to auto.

e.g.

SN2100 [standalone: master] (config) # sh interfaces ethernet 1/1

Eth1/1:

Admin state : Enabled

Operational state : Down

Last change in operational status: 0:05:11 ago (2 oper change)

Boot delay time : 0 sec

Description : N/A

Mac address : b8:59:9f:5b:d4:98

MTU : 1500 bytes (Maximum packet size 1522 bytes)

Fec : auto

Operational Fec : N/A

Flow-control : receive off send off

Supported speeds : 1G 10G 25G 40G 50G 56G 100G

Advertised speeds : 100G

Actual speed : Unknown

Auto-negotiation : Enabled

Width reduction mode : Unknown

Switchport mode : access

MAC learning mode : Enabled

Forwarding mode : inherited cut-through

Telemetry sampling: Disabled TCs: N/A

Telemetry threshold: Disabled TCs: N/A

Telemetry threshold level: N/A

Last clearing of “show interface” counters: Never

60 seconds ingress rate : 0 bits/sec, 0 bytes/sec, 0 packets/sec

60 seconds egress rate : 0 bits/sec, 0 bytes/sec, 0 packets/sec

The switch will auto-negotiate on 100G only. But now when I configure the speed to auto, you can see below that switch will auto-negotiate on all supported speeds and link comes up at 40G

SN2100 [standalone: master] (config) # interface ethernet 1/1 speed auto force

SN2100 [standalone: master] (config) # sh interfaces ethernet 1/1

Eth1/1:

Admin state : Enabled

Operational state : Up

Last change in operational status: 0:00:16 ago (3 oper change)

Boot delay time : 0 sec

Description : N/A

Mac address : b8:59:9f:5b:d4:98

MTU : 1500 bytes (Maximum packet size 1522 bytes)

Fec : auto

Operational Fec : no-fec

Flow-control : receive off send off

Supported speeds : 1G 10G 25G 40G 50G 56G 100G

Advertised speeds : 1G 10G 25G 40G 50G 56G 100G

Actual speed : 40G (auto)

Auto-negotiation : Enabled

Width reduction mode : Unknown

Switchport mode : access

MAC learning mode : Enabled

Forwarding mode : inherited cut-through

Telemetry sampling: Disabled TCs: N/A

Telemetry threshold: Disabled TCs: N/A

Telemetry threshold level: N/A

If the interface speed is set to auto, you cannot add it in Mlag port channel or regular port channel as it gives following error.

SN2100 [standalone: master] (config) # interface ethernet 1/1 mlag-channel-group 1 mode active

% Interface Eth1/1 must be configured only to one speed. Several speed values or “auto” option are not supported in mlag-channel-group.

Thanks,

Mellanox Support.

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